Chaos Theory

November 14, 2008

By Debbie G., Arlington Heights, IL

Image Credit: Colleen M., Melbourne, FL

Carolyn says she believes in angels while mascara spiders creep thickly along the heavy baggage beneath her eyes like the black pitch of the school hallways at night or the charcoal that she dips her fingernails in and I remember cheating on my math test that morning So I tell her I believe in people.

Roasted honey nut, the color she was born with but you really wouldn’t know it because of the midnight L’Oréal she chooses, tragically highlighted with Punk Pink or Raging Red from a bottle and 15 minutes of waiting – It spills limply over her black eyes whenever she leans down to write and Carolyn says she believes in fate.

In planets aligning in the universe and Feng shui that keeps mice away and prevents ulcers but also makes a girl fall in love with a boy but I know all about chemistry and hormones and catalysts so I think I believe in science.

In reincarnation, she thinks she’ll come back as a bird Or maybe a peacock and I say I agree when I see those striped stockings that come to her knees and neon earrings lifeless at her shoulders but she only laughs … tells me I never really see her and to call her later.

Now with the dial tone in my ear the cold trembling and I’m suffocating on nothing because I really see her and I know she believes in the afterlife but she doesn’t believe in laughter and the phone just rings and rings and rings …